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"New iPhone Application Offers Instant Access to Health Cost Information."

From AIS's Health Business Daily, here's Managing Editor Michael E. Carbine discussing a creative new iPhone application for consumer-directed health plan enrollees.

"Canopy Financial's Mobile Consumer Directed Healthcare (CDH) Software Application, the only such one, allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to search medical procedures using keywords to determine if they are eligible for payment using their spending accounts, a valuable capability in its own right. But when the user identifies a specific procedure, the application not only maps the location of local providers offering the procedure but also pulls up the customary cost of the procedure based on the consumer's ZIP code.

...

"The medical expense locator feature combines Canopy data on procedure rates with the iPhone's integrated mapping application to match procedures with providers in the user's ZIP code. Contact information for all identified providers also is displayed. A Procedure Cost Analyzer then retrieves customary prices that insurers and employers typically pay for the procedure, again by ZIP code. This...enables consumers to contact providers to evaluate and negotiate prices before agreeing to undergo and pay for a procedure."
The $4.99 download offers a lot of useful functionality to CDH members (full disclosure: including me.)

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